Cooper River Bridge

forthcoming in Broad River Review

This pylon of silver,
its rivets like buttons on an old man’s plaid shirt.
Billed birds cry to their companions,
scraping the brown muck of pluff mud
from their wings. That musty smell’s
all in my drinking water,
algae compounds leaving spots on my wine glass.
They say refrigerate your tap water—
for a nice, clean taste.

Where would the Holy City
be without its liquid economic engine,
but also its brakes—high tides flood
downtown streets anytime it rains more than an inch.
“Rain bombs” overload the drainage systems.
And it’s only going to get hotter.

I wipe sweat, adjust my hair clip.
A fellow runner in jean shorts and a dirty tank top praises,Thank you, Jesus! as we lean our feet
into that first grueling hill,
built to accommodate container ships,
their minds hold nothing
but air and steel, port and prayer.

Chorus: The Hero of Acheron

Against our constant warnings,You have 5 minutes to evacuate!she descends in the elevator,
shedding her blue jacket, shedding her mind-killers—
always watchful with her duct-taped
pulse rifle and flame thrower to rescue
the girl, her Persephone from
the Queen of the eggs.
This Demeter is something of an immortal—
while in cryo-sleep she outlived her Earth daughter
and once returned to her planet, chose
a space station’s safe orbit, refusing
to walk barefoot in the prairie grass
or view stars burning with death.

She brings her own star justice to the Queen’s eggs,
dripping with mucous as one hatches…
saving the girl before the pomegranates eat her.
Angels hum to the sulfured air.
The two rise to the unstable surface,
what was rage in her descent is now fear.You have 2 minutes to evacuate!This wounded goddess could lose everything;
she’s fighting gods with their own agendas—
before it was only her and her vengeance.You have 30 seconds to evacuate!The android Hermes flies
to mother and daughter before enfolding them
aboard the Sulaco as the dead world explodes.
The humans and near human flinch
to shock waves rising higher and higher
in the moon’s atmosphere.
But all we know Hades won’t let
Persephone ever leave
the underworld.

LBJ Takes Off

Forthcoming in Comstock Review Fall/Winter 2014

Goddammit, all I want is a cigarette.
Everyone else is smoking,
what a sweat lodge, all shades closed up tight.
Boil at the back of my neck’s gonna explode.
No one leaves Dallas till I say the word.
Our tents’ve been raided and our horses hobbled.

The morning team’s out of office for good,
but hell if I’m the chief in the Irish mafia’s mind.
So come on over, honey, get up from the bed,
I’m not about to stage a coup.
That’s right, all the ladies ‘round me,
Lady Bird, Judge Sarah, sweet, sweet Jackie.

My hands don’t shake, but hers do. Mercy.
They’re bare, white—still lots of blood
on her pink outfit,
but now don’t see anything
but the flashbulbs. Thank God
for the smoke, or the smell
she carries would kill us again.

So help me God!I shout over the howling engines.
swearing on this stand-in Bible
Jackie snatched from the bedroom’s nightstand.

Hatches shut tight
the Colonel shoots us so hard
out of Love Field we’re like
a Comanche’s lance,
driving its steel point
into our surprised throat.

Boba Fett at the Chick-fil-A in Hickory, North Carolina

Published in Quantum Fairy Tales Fall/Winter 2014

My spent leg drags over the brown tile,
as graceful as a Bantha.
Sure, the Mandalorian body armor holds
my knee together, but I’m getting too old for this shit.
Tired of the nights camped out in my truck,
waiting for skips to duck out.
Tired of combing through databases till 3 a.m.
looking up license plates.
Tired of dressing up as a UPS dude
to gain access into their double-wides.
Eating nothing but Snickers for three days.

A large grilled chicken sandwich and waffle fries. Large, please.A tall Coke. No ice. Hold the pickles. To go. Thanks.

I hit the head and run into
a 2 x 6 Day-Glo painting with Jeremiah 29:11 in bold print:

For I know the plans I have for you,plans to prosper you and not to harm you,plans to give you hope and a future.

It’s laughable like weak coffee, the garish rabbits and rainbows.
but I can’t unsee it.
AA meetings taught me to accept the things I cannot change,
like my father’s murder or Han freakin’ Solo.
Hardship is the pathway to peace, they say.
Doling out violence and fear are my defaults
and my sponsor knows I still can’t surrender to anyone.
Perhaps I need new expectations.
Holding the door for an old man in a Braves hat,
I keep my eye out for movement among the parking lot pines
and mutter a tiny prayer while backing out by the Drive-Thru.
And an even bigger one when I take a bite
to drive east into the sun.
Telling myself this ketchup on my armor is real,
even if the past isn’t.

Meeting the Devil in Myrtle Beach outside Woody’s, Hwy 17Published in Referential MagazineNominated for a 2012 Best of the Net Award

Aren’t I the one you’re looking for? he greeted me
at the restaurant door. I should have done laundry
or zoned out to VH1 instead of meeting friends for beers.
Who was this man with a bald head shaped like a squash,
a nimble slug in a Dick’s T-shirt and jean shorts.

Who could be this fugly with such confidence?
I didn’t mean to nod at, Do you like dancing?
He poked me with questions about lasagna. White or red?
He told me I preferred a bloody cardinal vintage.Karaoke? He knew I sang every Wednesday night. Then
he asked me about any hoop piercings in my lady parts.
A smirk from his thick, swine lips. You look like you havea thick clit. How could he know or not know?
He smelled of Brut and Bensons & Hedges, not brimstone,
but, oh, yes, it was time to leave and take a different way home.

I didn’t mean to vaporize seven minutes from my life.
I didn’t mean to never forget his face.

August 31, 1997 in After the Steaming Stops

Thanks to the front page,I found out like most people did:how she lay dying in a Paris tunnel,how the impact raked her in like soft hay in a baler.With Binky the Siamese cat plopped on my lap,I stop spreading strawberry jam on rye toast,his skin folds and dusty white fur escaping over the print.I wish he could lick all of that black type and spit upa vicious hairball I’d shovel inside wet beach sand.

Loss reminds you about change,and what you are willing to throw away.

One week later it’s too early for the calls of pelicans and egrets,as I drive to a friend’s home on Folly Beachto view the prince-demanded funeral. I couldhave watched at home, but her day demanded witnesses.My boyfriend didn’t know who she wasand couldn’t understand her power.

It’s the second time in 18 yearsI’ve set my alarm to see such pageantry.Eight horses carry the hearseinstead of the bridal carriage.I cry more for her than I didfor any family death. I cryfor another death coming.

I see it’s time for me to move out of his place,tell him what he’s afraid to say,and take his fat cat and a few towels in the parting.

Enjoy a taste of Alice’s award-winning poetry!

Ice Cream Party Award Winner, Poetry Council of North Carolina

Pale plaid dresses brush against pink walls, patent leatherMary Janes kick white tiles.Two balloons escape into rafters,and I haven’t tasted even a teaspoon of ice cream.I won’t, not on this day.My third birthday, high voicessqueal above the store’s door chime.Hands clap—my mother’s— demanding silence. Guests disappearlike popped bubbles. The girls go homebecause I’m not behaving my mother says.I never find out what I did wrong,but I remember her saying:I love you, but sometimes I don’t like you.

For a long time I feared the chanceof friends leaving early. Will anyone love me when they know me?Will they show up at my parties?

I idle my bike in this empty field,dry as a Southern Baptist wedding.I cough from the exhaust andthe scorched wildflowers on the edgessmell wasted, me on pot.Don’t smoke, don’t drink anymore…My body’s given up way before telling me the score.

As a kid, I don’t remember my mother much,and I never met my father.He saw me on TV as Josh Randallon Wanted: Dead or Alive,priming the “Mare’s Leg,”and never bothered to call.Uncle Claude threw meagainst walls on Sunday nightsafter spending the day drinking Bushmills.Saturday mornings he taughtme how to shoot ‘emrabbits and squirrelsin that shitty dumpI had to leave.

Mom showed up,I couldn’t stand her.Her dyed blonde hair, legs up in the airmen passed through herlike watches at a pawn shop.At twelve, I was tumbleweed that blew into Chino,the reform school where Iwas never tall or strong enough,yet hit hard without hurting my right hand.(My first two wives would agree)

When I made it in The Magnificent SevenI asked Big Money to givesoap and jeans to the Chino boys.Yeah, man, I worked my own stunts,almost filmed me and not Bud jumping my bikeover the barbed-wire fence.My dune buggy ridemade Ed Sullivan piss his pants.

They needed to know I drove the Mustang,I always get the last word,don’t they know?Maybe they could failbut I couldn’t.When I die, it’ll befrontpage news.

Honorable Mention Winner in the 2012 Carolina Woman Writing Contest

Ode to Hamburger Helper

Come to me my enriched pasta and rice,packaged cheese and red powdered sauce—I pull out the milk and water for youon school nights when the kidsare starving for Beef Pasta or Crunchy Taco.My husband prays for your buck a box special at Food Lion,a week of dinners—just kidding—but seriously,I did you three times a weekwhen we were first married.

Well-meaning friends demand I opena cookbook once in a while—there’s way too much saltand MSG in your gloved Helping Hand boxes,evoking a certain late pop star.They tell me to avoid your yellow starches,cook real pasta and veggies—forego the quick prep.Run past Aisle 4—“Prepared Foods”—run!And what the hell are you doing in Food Lion anyway?

They can keep their organic carrots and hand cut pasta;I’ve got 27 Box Tops to collect for my son’s school.I blame my mother—oh, I know, but it’s true!She created all from scratch,spent hours in the kitchen, and nary a Helper or a Kraftnoodle crossed my lips till I was 20.Like skirts, pendulums swingand I love your Italian, Chicken and Asian Helpersover browned lean beef.

I promise not to burn you.

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Alice, I just finished reading After The Steaming Stops. It is beautiful and haunting with an invisible power….like someone released the steam valve on a pressure cooker. p.s. I enjoyed the Writer’s Workshop last night.

Thank you so much, Pam! So glad we met last night at the Writers’ Workshop on Method Rd. I’ll be reading from “After the Steaming Stops” this Sunday 2/24 at McIntyre’s Books in Fearrington Village in Pittsboro from 2-3pm–please come!